Nvidia's Project Denver to feature x86 emulation?

Just like China's Loongson processors, the emulation will be achieved by use of an extra hardware layer, though it will come with a speed penalty of between 15% and 20% (still better than the Loongson's 30 percent penalty). Nvidia is expected to launch the CPU around 2013-2014.

Adding the x86 emulation to the package will help the graphics chip maker to better compete with Intel Corporation and Advanced Micro Devices.

Project Denver is expected to launch around the same time as Nvidia's Maxwell GPU architecture, both of which could be interlinked to provide a very high-performance computing platform to drive the next generation of computers.

Its design allows it to be used for products that range from Desktop PCs right up to high-resource supercomputers.